Research and Development
Germany Leads Record Year for European Patents
Inventors filed for a new high of 199,000 patents with the European Patent Office (EPO) in 2023. Twelve percent of them came from Germany.
Mar 27, 2024
Germany’s 25,000 filed patents were tops in Europe. The number rose from 24,600 in 2022.
The next country on the EPO’s annual index was France with 11,000 patents, followed by Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK.
Overall, patent applications to the EPO increased by 2.9 percent compared to 2022. The growth was particularly driven by patents in the electrical machinery and energy sector, which were up 12.2 percent. Digital communications applications also rose 8.6 percent.
